The Kids & Family Reading Report™: 6th Edition :: Scholastic

Kids & Family
Reading Report™, Scholastic’s biannual study of children’s and parents’
attitudes and behaviors around reading. In the decade since, much has changed
in the research on reading aloud starting at birth, discussions around access
to books and diversity in children’s books, and efforts to promote summer
reading. Yet despite knowing that all families want their children to succeed,
not all realize that books and reading both improve children’s academic skills
and critical thinking abilities, as well as help children develop empathy and
compassion.

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Among
the most positive findings we see the impact of the recent movement to
encourage families to begin reading aloud to their children at birth and to
keep going as their children get older. Previously, we found 30% of parents
with children ages 0–5 reported reading to their child before three months old.
Today, 40% of parents do. The percentage of families reading aloud to young
children 5–7 days a week has also increased among families with kids ages 3–5
(55% to 62%), yet we still find many parents read less often to children older
than 5, with another steep drop-off occurring at age 8.

While
starting to read aloud early matters, we know that having books at home also
makes a difference in kids’ reading lives. The report verifies that the homes
of frequent readers have far more children’s books than the homes of infrequent
readers, and a similar disparity exists in low-income homes and the homes of
AfricanAmerican and Hispanic families. This is a strong call to action to
ensure we are all working hard to get books into the hands of every child.

We
also wanted to better understand what diversity in children’s books means to
parents, as well as what types of characters kids and parents look for in kids’
books. Parents shared with us that when they consider the meaning of diversity
in books for children and teens, they believe these books include “people and
experiences different than those of my child” (73%), “various cultures, customs
or religions” (68%), “differently-abled people” (51%), “people of color” (47%),
and “LGBTQ people” (21%). We also found about one in 10 kids look for
characters who are differentlyabled (13%), are culturally or ethnically diverse
(11%), and who break stereotypes (11%). Hispanic and African-American families
express more interest in diverse books than non-Hispanic and
non-AfricanAmerican families.

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The
key findings of this research, based on a nationally representative sample of
2,718 parents and children, including 632 parents of children ages 0–5; 1,043
parents of children ages 6–17; plus one child age 6–17 from the same household, are as follows:

WHAT
KIDS & PARENTS WANT IN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

The
average home with children ages 0–17 reports having 104 children’s books,
however, there are large disparities in the number of books for kids in the
home when considering kids’ reading frequency and household income:

> Children who are frequent readers have 141 children’s books in their homes vs.
65 books for kids among infrequent readers’ homes.

> Households with income less than $35Konly have an average of 69 children’s booksvs. 127 books for kids in households with
income more than $100K.READ MORE @